History, doctrine, culture, books

Reappraising Joseph

I posted a new Now Reading book: Joseph Smith, Jr.: Reappraisals After Two Centuries (OUP, 2009), a collection of scholarly essays edited by Reid Neilson and Terryl Givens. [Doesn't it seem like Givens publishes about three books a year?] The quality of the essays seems quite good, with the volume as a whole being yet another attempt to make progress on "the prophet puzzle." That puzzle concerns how historians can reconcile two glaringly different views of Joseph Smith — as prophet or charlatan — each supported by some historical evidence. I'll post on a couple of the essays when I'm a little farther along.

I'm guessing that much of the Joseph Smith scholarship will be ripe for reexamination in a dozen years, after the full run of the Joseph Smith Papers Project is published. Which is not to say there will be wholesale reversals, just revisions and adjustments where new or better documents provide additional insight. I doubt, for example, that a better biography than Rough Stone Rolling will be forthcoming for two generations. But aren't we about due for a new one-volume history of the church?

Mormon Books 2013-14

Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of MormonismGivens and Grow's warts-and-all biography of this energetic missionary, author, and apostle whose LDS career spanned Joseph Smith's life, the emigration to Utah, and Brigham Young's early leadership of the Church in Utah. My Review